Earthquake and its Impacts on Education: Aftermath Nepal Quake 2015

Krishna Basnet

doi:10.31757/euer.332

Abstract

Although earthquakes themselves do not kill people, they highlight the critical importance of physical infrastructure resilience, safety measures and preparedness for natural disasters. Earthquakes are one of several environmental crises that can be categorized as a natural hazard/disaster. This study uses the qualitative method of research. The semi-structured interview with follow up questions among the educational actors like students, head/teachers, officials from the district education office and the local NGO staff working in the field of education before and immediately after the earthquake. The content analyses of curriculum of secondary level and textbooks of grade IX and X as well as field visit/observation were carried out during the study. The result and the conclusion of this study show that following the 2015 earthquake, the preparation of emergency bags helped children and their families gather essential items in a ready-to-go bag specifically designed for disaster situations. Simulation activities in schools helped prepare students for future disasters, and there were also many initiatives to reduce student and teacher trauma following the 2015 quake, including the development of a credited 5-hour teacher professional development (TPD) counselling programme. The inclusion of school disaster risk reduction (DRR) education in the curriculum and textbooks containing information on earthquakes, their cause, effects and preventive measures have now been disseminated in many languages including Nepali and English.

Highlights

Nepal is a landlocked country between two giant countries - India and China (Ulak, 2015)
The key finding of this study is that the devastating 2015 earthquake and its aftershocks had a significant impact on education: on students, teachers and other educational actors
The earthquake caused a huge loss of life and property in Nepal and school buildings were not an exception: many completely collapsed and it was impossible to run classes even if buildings were only partially damaged

Summary

Introduction

Nepal is a landlocked country between two giant countries - India and China (Ulak, 2015). Zakour and D.F Gillespie than the pre-disaster phase This is (2013) in their book Community Disaster relevant to this study since the people in Nepal in Vulnerability: Theory, Research and Practice. The research on vulnerability has drawn on traditional methods known as comprehensive disaster management They are disaster mitigation (prevention), preparedness, response, and recovery (reconstruction). Despite preparedness (having the best emergency plans, the most comprehensive preparedness programmes, and the most effective risk reduction plans in hand), disasters still strike throughout the world on a regular basis and it struck in Nepal in 2015 too When they do, individuals, communities, and countries must initiate disaster response, working within their limited funding, resources, abilities, and time to prevent the onset of a catastrophe. People in less-developed countries like Nepal tend to suffer slow and ineffective recoveries from disaster (Bankoff, 2004)

Research Methodology

Findings

Conclusion and Recommendation